Channeling Julia

We just installed our new web site. To find all the past blog entries visit the main page at http://www.evilauntie.net/

Many of the old entries have been condensed into a single post - but all the information is still there.

Sweet dreams guaranteed!

Hot chocolate on a cold winter night will make your snuggle with your Valentine much more enjoyable...

Mix cocoa, sugar and milk. Heat up, then top with whipped cream and add a chocolate leaf!

It is popularly thought that the Mayans created the first chocolate beverage about 2000 years ago. The Aztecs made a few changes to the Mayan recipes - sometimes adding vanilla and other spices. Though Cortes brought a cold chocolate drink recipe back to Spain in 1528, supplies of cocoa beans were astronomically expensive and the drink had limited popularity. Hot chocolate as we know it today was developed in the early 17th century, when the Spanish modified the Aztec recipe for xocolatl by removing the chili peppers, adding cane sugar and heating the mixture. Milk was added by the English towards the end of that century.

In the 19th century the Dutch developed a method of separating the cocoa butter from the cocoa solids. Since then chocolate drinks have usually been made without the cocoa butter. So modern hot chocolate has only the fat present in the milk used to make it. Some people prefer to reduce the calories by making hot chocolate with water or skim milk. Others go so far as to replace the sweetener with a diet sweetener or omit it entirely - thus resurrecting the Mayan recipe.

Spices served with hot chocolate include cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom and nutmeg.

This isn't just any ordinary chocolate cake, it's a chocolate ice cream cake!

This one is made with chocolate cake layered with ice cream. Some ice cream cakes are made from several flavors of ice cream shaped like a cake. Frozen confections like the ice cream sandwich are also summertime favorites.

The ice cream cake first became popular in the 1870's - about the same time that refrigeration became practical and ice could be purchased for the home at any time of the year from the roving iceman. Other variations of ice cream desserts include the Bombe

The commercial refrigerator was first used in the 1860's in breweries and in meat packing, but wasn't efficient until the 1870's when ammonia began to be used as the refrigerant. However, ammonia refrigeration units were found to have major safety issues and it was safer to produce ice and ship to the home as needed. Home refrigerators (introduced in 1911) used toxic coolants up until the 1930's when Freon was introduced.

Prior to the invention of practical refrigeration machinery, ice was cut from ponds in the winter and stored in nearby ice houses. There was also a thriving business in shipping ice from the Arctic to Northern Europe and North America up until the 20th century. The earliest known ice house dates from 1700 BC.

Sweets for the sweet?

How about these luscious fresh strawberries dipped in our own special dark chocolate with crunchy unrefined cocoa nibs!

A traditional indicator of the quality of chocolate is smooth grainless texture. This is the result of many hours of conching - grinding and evenly distributing the mixture of cocoa butter, cocoa and sugar. We chose to invert this paradigm by adding granulated sugar and cacao nibs to our already high cocoa butter chocolate - producing a slightly gritty and crunchy chocolate with a texture not unlike a chocolate bar with coffee beans, but with a pure chocolate taste.

Have you ever wondered what the percentage mark on a fancy chocolate bar really means?

A number such as 54% means that the bar contains 54% cocoa products (chocolate liquor) - the remainder is sugar and flavor. This is somewhat confusing as the ratio of cocoa solids to cocoa butter is not stated. If the label also has the word "Couverture", then extra cocoa butter has been added so the total amount of cocoa butter in the bar is at least 32%.

So a 54% couverture chocolate bar will have (approximately) 32% cocoa butter, 22% cocoa solids, 45% sugar and about 1% flavor and/or other ingredients. The result will be a sweet dark chocolate bar with a high sheen and a mellow creamy texture. (For comparison, a less expensive 54% chocolate bar would have 27% cocoa butter, 27% cocoa solids, 45% sugar and 1% other ingredients.)

70% chocolate bars are much the same except that the percentage of sugar is lower and the result is semisweet. Note that a normal 70% chocolate bar will contain 35% cocoa butter and 35% cocoa solids - but to be called couverture chocolate the ratio would need to be more like 39% cocoa butter to 31% cocoa solids.

A footnote - the Chocolate Manufacturers Association would like to replace cocoa butter with vegetable oils so they can make cheaper chocolate and sell the cocoa butter for a big profit. To date the FDA has refused to allow this practice.

Different forms and flavors of chocolate are produced by varying the ingredients. Unsweetened chocolate is pure chocolate liquor - the ground or melted state of the nib of the cacao bean. This chocolate liquor contains roughly equal amounts of cocoa butter and cocoa solids.

Dark chocolate is produced by adding sugar to chocolate liquor. It is typically made without the addition of milk although in the United States some milk might be added. The US Government has no set definition for "dark chocolate" but it does for "sweet chocolate" which is required to have 15% chocolate liquor. In Europe a minimum of 35% chocolate liquor (the nonfat part of the cacao bean) is required.

Certain brands such as Scharffen Berger have an even higher percentage of chocolate liquor - up to 70% or more and a resultingly higher fat content - as much as 30-40%. Not to be outdone, ordinary chocolate bars found in European supermarkets may actually have a whopping 85-99% chocolate liquor.

Dark Chocolate is believed to have positive health benefits due to the favonol antioxidants derived from the ground cocoa seeds. As we've learned antioxidants may be helpful in the prevention of cancer, heart disease, and neurodegenerative diseases. However like everything else it should be taken in moderation - eat too much dark chocolate and you might just get fat.

But seeing how it's going to be Valentine's Day - go ahead and enjoy your chocolate. There are many recipes available for making your own We like to make ours from bittersweet chips, confectioners sugar and butter in the microwave with a generous dollop of Canadian Whiskey. It comes out creamy smooth and delicious - definitely a mood elevator and perhaps an aphrodisiac.